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Two weeks later, Tom woke up from sleep in his back porch, at his and Kyrie's house, looking up at the ceiling some past occupier had painted a deep pink. The bathroom had been repaired. The house was silent. Kyrie's breathing wasn't audible from her bedroom, and neither was what he was sure must be Notty's quite industrial-sized purr.

He wasn't sure what had wakened him, but Dire was on his mind. He hadn't seen Dire or heard from him for two weeks, and he wanted Old Joe to be right. He wanted it to be that Dire had gone away forever.

And just as he thought this he heard the voice in his mind. Hey, Dragon Boy, come and be killed! With the words came a flash—the view of Dire, in his animal form, waiting, down the street from Tom, in a little park, where pine trees covered in snow stood silent guard over a gazebo and stone boulders. In summer, the park was frequented by everyone in the neighborhood. But in winter no one ever went there, and the little lake in the middle was iced over—though not enough for anyone to skate on it.

It was the perfect place, Tom thought, for a duel. A shifter duel. But he was thousands of years younger than Dire. And he knew he couldn't fight the mind powers.

Or did he? There was something Dire had said, about how the Great Sky Dragon himself had been defeated because he cared too much for his subordinate. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps the way to fight with the mind, the way the Ancient Ones did, came from not caring.

Yes. It does, Dante Dire said in his mind. It comes from us having seen the generations unfold and caring for nothing. You love life, that's your weakness. While we love only death, even our own, if it comes to that.

And something in Tom's mind beat against the words. Denied them. He didn't care if they were true. He would not accept them. That was no way to live.

He got up, undressed silently. On his way out the door, he opened Kyrie's door a crack—enough to see her sleeping, under the moonlight, on her side, her face supported on her arm. Notty was nestled in her hair, purring. They looked peaceful. Domestic.

And Tom went out, into the cold dark night.

On his front porch, after closing the door carefully behind himself, he shifted.

 

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Framed